The Elephant Whisperer: My Life With the Herd in the African Wild

by Lawrence Anthony

  I went quiet, trying to unravel all this in my head. The opportunity was great, but so was the risk.

  What about the poachers – would the promise of ivory bring even more of them out of the woodwork? What about having to electrify my entire reserve to keep these giant pachyderms in when I could barely keep thieves with high-velocity rifles out? What about having to build an enclosure to quarantine them while they got used to their new home? Where would I find the funds … the resources?

  Also Marion didn’t shy away from saying they were ‘troublesome’. But what did that really mean? Were they just escape artists? Or was this a genuine rogue herd, too dangerous and filled with hatred of humans to keep on a game reserve in a populated area?

  However, here was a herd in trouble. Despite the risks, I knew what I had to do.

  ‘Hell yes,’ I replied. ‘I’ll take them.’

  chapter two

  I was still reeling from the shock of becoming an instant elephant-owner, when I got another: the current owners wanted the herd off their property within two weeks. Or else the deal would be off. The elephants would be shot as the owners regarded them as too much of a liability. Unfortunately, when an animal as large as an elephant is considered ‘troublesome’, it is almost always shot.

  Two weeks? In that time we had to repair and electrify twenty miles of big game fencing and build from scratch a quarantine boma – a traditional holding pen – strong enough to hold the planet’s most powerful animal.

  When I bought Thula Thula, in 1998, it was 5,000 acres of primal Africa, the only improvement being an old hunters’ camp with outside ablutions. But its history is as exotic as the continent itself. Thula Thula is the oldest private game reserve in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and thought to be once part of the exclusive hunting grounds of King Shaka, the near-deified warrior who founded the Zulu nation in the early nineteenth century. In fact it was so exclusive that anyone caught hunting there without the king’s express permission was put to death.

  From Shaka onwards, for most of its existence Thula Thula’s teeming wildlife has made it a hunting magnet, attracting wealthy clients seeking trophy antelope. In the 1940s the owner was a retired Governor General of Kenya, who used it as an upmarket shooting lodge for the gin and tonic set.

  That’s all in the past. Hunting was scrapped the moment we took over. The characterful but dilapidated old biltong and brandy camp was demolished, and in its place we built a small luxury eco-lodge set on expansive lawns leading down to the Nseleni River. The beautiful Old Dutch gabled farmhouse overlooking the reserve became home and offices for Françoise and me.

  But to get there has been a personal odyssey. I grew up in ‘old’ Africa, before the days of mass urbanization, running barefoot under big skies in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi. My friends were rural African kids and together we ranged the wild world that was our backyard.

  During the early 1960s my family moved to the sugarcane-growing coastal belt of Zululand, South Africa. The hub of the area at the time was a hamlet out in the boondocks called Empangeni. It was a tough town with character. Stories of leathery farmers partying all night and skidding their tractors through the main street swigging ‘spook ’n diesel’ (cane spirit mixed with a smidgen of Coca-Cola) are still told to this day. For us teenagers, you had to hold your own and play a hard game of rugby to earn respect.

  My shooting skills, honed in the deep African bush, also stood me in good stead and farmers sent me out on their lands to bag guinea fowl and grouse for the pot. The backwoods was my home; I could hit a can thrown into the air at twenty paces with a .22 rifle and think little of it.

  After finishing school I left for the city, establishing a realestate company. But my youthful memories of wild Africa followed me. I knew one day I would return.

  That happened in the early 1990s. I was poring over a map of the area west of Empangeni and was struck by the profusion of unutilized tribal land, far too feral for even the hardiest cattle. These trust lands gallop right up to the borders of the famous Umfolozi-Hluhluwe reserve, the first game sanctuary established anywhere in Africa and where the southern white rhino was saved from extinction.

  The trust land, a massive tract of gloriously pristine bush, belonged to six different Zulu clans. An idea light-bulbed in my head: if I could persuade them to join in conserving wildlife instead of hunting or grazing, we could create one of the finest reserves imaginable. But to do this I would have to convince each tribal leader to agree individually to lease the land to a single trust. It would be called the Royal Zulu, and benefits such as job creation would go straight back into the struggling local communities.

  Thula Thula, with solid infrastructure already in place was the key to the project. It was a natural wedge abutting the tribal lands and forming a crucial eastern gateway to the reserves. And for the first time in fifty years it was on the market. Destiny? Well … who knows?

  I took a deep breath, spoke nicely – very nicely – to my bank manager and Françoise and I ended up as the new owners.

  I fell in love with it from the moment I went walkabout. It’s something I still do, jump in the Land Rover and drive out onto the open savannahs or into the thickest, most thorn-scrubbed veldt I can find, and go for a walk. There is nothing more energizing than inhaling the tang of wilderness, loamy after rain, pungent with the richness of earth shuddering with life, or taking in the brisk dry cleanness of winter. In the outback, life is lived for the instant. The land thrums with exuberance when everything is green and lush and is stoically resilient when it isn’t. In the bush, simple acts give intense atavistic pleasures, such as sliding a sprig of grass into the tiny slot of a scorpion hole and feeling a tug that pound for pound would rival a game fish. Even today that triggers memories of my born-free adolescence as vividly as a lovelorn youth recalling his first heart-thudding kiss.

  So too does the chime of songbirds, the tunesmiths of the planet, where even a panicked warning call is perfectly in pitch. Or watching life’s endlessly fascinating passing show, the brutal poetry of the food chain where life is so precarious yet pulses so powerfully in every shape, colour and form.

  Those solitary hikes in Thula Thula evoked the path I first walked as a child in untamed places. Now decades later I was bringing a herd of elephants, to me the definitive symbol of wild Africa, back to an ancient Zululand home. Thula Thula’s landscape is an elephant’s paradise: woodlands leading to sweet savannah, riverbanks choked with nutritious grasses and waterholes that never run dry, even in the bleakest of winters.

  But we had to get cracking, electrifying the fences and building a sturdy boma. The word boma means stockade and with antelope it’s a simple matter of erecting barriers high enough to stop them from leaping over. However, with elephants, which are stronger than a truck, it’s a different ballgame altogether. You have to spike the fences with enough mega-volts to hold a five-ton juggernaut.

  The electrical force is designed not to injure the animals; it’s only there to warn them off. Thus it’s vital that the boma is a replica of the reserve’s outer border so once they have learned that bumping into it is not much fun, they will later steer clear of the boundary.

  There was no way we were going to be able to do all that in just two weeks but we would certainly give it a damn good try and wing it from there.

  I radioed David and Ndonga to come to the office.

  ‘Guys, you’re looking at the owner of a herd of elephants.’

  Both stared for a moment as if I had gone loopy. David spoke first. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve been given nine elephants.’ I scratched my head, still hardly believing it myself. ‘It’s a one-off deal – if I don’t take them they’ll be shot. But the bad news is that they’re a bit of a problem. They’ve broken through fences before – electric ones.’

  David’s face lifted in a massive grin.

  ‘Elephants! Fantastic!’ He paused for a moment and I could see he was mulling over the s
ame concerns that I had. ‘But how are we gonna hold them here? Thula’s fences won’t stop ellies.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got two weeks to fix them. And to build a boma.’

  ‘Two weeks? For twenty miles of fence?’ Ndonga spoke for the first time, giving me a doubtful look.

  ‘We’ve got no choice. The current owners have given me a deadline.’

  David’s unfettered enthusiasm was gratifying and I instinctively knew he would be my right-hand man on this project.

  Tall and well built with handsome Mediterranean features, David was a natural leader with a sense of purpose about him that belied his nineteen years. Our families have ties stretching back decades and it was, I believe, fate that brought him to Thula Thula during this pivotal period. A fourth-generation Zululander, he had no formal gameranger credentials but that didn’t worry me. He could do a hard day’s work and was in tune with the natural world, which I have found to be one of the best recommendations for anyone, regardless of vocation. He also had been a top rugby player, a flank forward with a reputation for almost kamikaze tackles. This tenacity would certainly be tested at Thula Thula.

  I then called in the Zulu staff and asked them to put the word out among the local community that we needed labourers. The nearest village to us is Buchanana where unemployment runs at 60 per cent. I knew there would be no problem finding able bodies, the problem would be the skill factor. A rural Zulu can build a decent shelter out of sticks, a puddle of mud and a handful of grass, but we were talking of constructing an electrified elephant-proof stockade. The gangs would have to be heavily supervised at all times, but they would develop skills which would stand them in good stead when job hunting later.

  Sure enough, over the next two days there were hordes of people outside Thula Thula’s gates clamouring for work. Hundreds of thousands in rural Africa live close to the brink, and I was glad to be able to contribute to the community.

  To keep the amakhosi – local chieftains – on our side, I made appointments to explain what we were doing. Incredibly, most Zulus have never set eyes on an elephant as nowadays the giants of South Africa are all in fenced sanctuaries. The last free roaming jumbos in our part of Zululand were actually killed almost a century ago. So the main aim of visiting the chiefs was to explain that we were bringing these magnificent creatures ‘home’ again, as well as providing assurances that the fences were electrified on the inside and thus wouldn’t harm any passers-by.

  However, the fact that none of the locals had seen an elephant before did not stop them from voicing ‘expert’ opinions.

  ‘They will eat our crops,’ said one, ‘and then what will we do?’

  ‘What about the safety of our women when they fetch water?’ another asked.

  ‘We’re worried about the children,’ said a third, referring to the young herd boys who do a man’s work looking after cattle alone. ‘They do not know elephant.’

  ‘I heard they taste good,’ piped up another. ‘An elephant can feed all the village.’

  OK, that was not quite the reaction I wanted. But generally the amakhosi seemed well disposed to the project.

  Except one. I was away for a day and asked one of my rangers to discuss the issue with an interim chief. Sadly all he succeeded in doing was antagonizing the man. The chief kept repeating ‘these are not my elephant; I know nothing about this’ to anything said.

  Fortunately Françoise was there and took over. She did so reluctantly as rural Zulu society is polygamous and uncompromisingly masculine. No man wants to be seen listening to a woman.

  Chauvinism? Sure, but that’s the way it is out in the sticks. It took skill and charm for Françoise to hold her ground. Eventually the chief relented, admitting he had no real concerns.

  With approval from the amakhosi secured, we selected seventy of the fittest-looking recruits and in record time were up and running. Singing ancient martial songs, the Zulu gangs started work and despite the impossible deadline, as the fence slowly crept across the countryside, I began to breathe easier.

  Then just as we started to see progress we ran up against a wall.

  David came sprinting into the office. ‘Bad news, boss. Workers on the western boundary have downed tools. They say they’re being shot at. Everyone’s too scared to work.’

  I stared at him, uncomprehendingly. ‘What do you mean? Why would anyone shoot at a gang of labourers?

  David shrugged. ‘I dunno, boss. Sounds like it has to be a cover for something else, perhaps a strike for more money …’

  I doubted that, as the workers were paid a decent rate already. The reason for the strike was more likely to be muthi, or witchcraft.

  In rural Zululand belief in the supernatural is as common as breathing, and muthi is all-powerful. It can either be benevolent or malevolent, just as sangomas – witchdoctors – can be both good and evil. To resist bad muthi you need to get a benign sangoma to cast a more potent counter spell. Sangomas charge for their services, of course, and sometimes initiate stories of malevolent muthi for exactly that purpose – and that’s what could be happening here.

  ‘What do we do, boss?’

  ‘Let’s try and find out what’s going on. In the meantime we don’t have much choice. Pay off those too spooked to work and let’s get replacements. We’ve got to keep moving.’

  I also gave instructions for a group of security guards to be placed on standby to protect the remaining labourers.

  The next morning David once more came running into the office.

  ‘Man, we’ve got real problems,’ he said, catching his breath. ‘They’re shooting again and one of the workers is down.’

  I grabbed my old Lee – Enfield .303 rifle and the two of us sped to the fence in the Land Rover. Most of the labourers were crouching behind trees while a couple tended to their bleeding colleague. He had been hit in the face by heavy shotgun pellets.

  After checking that the injury was not life-threatening, we started criss-crossing the bush until we picked up the tracks – or spoor as it is called in Africa. It belonged to a single gunman – not a group, as we had initially feared. I called Bheki and my security induna Ngwenya, whose name means crocodile in Zulu, two of our best and toughest Zulu rangers. Bheki is the hardest man I have ever met, slim with quiet eyes and a disarmingly innocent face, while Ngwenya, thickset and muscular, had an aura of quiet authority about him which influenced the rest of the rangers in his team.

  ‘You two go ahead and track the gunman. David and I will stay here to protect the rest of the workers.’

  They nodded and inched their way through the thornveld until they believed they were behind the shooter. They slowly cut back and waited … and waited.

  Then Ngwenya saw a brief glint of sunlight flash off metal. He signalled to Bheki, pointing to the sniper’s position. Lying low in the long grass, they rattled off a volley of warning shots. The sniper dived behind an anthill, fired two blasts from his shotgun, then disappeared into the thick bush.

  But the guards had seen him – and to their surprise, they knew him. He was a ‘hunter’ from another Zulu village some miles away.

  We drove the shot labourer to hospital and called the police. The guards identified the gunman and the cops raided his thatched hut, seizing a dilapidated shotgun. Amazingly, he confessed without any hint of shame that he was a ‘professional poacher’ – and then heaped the blame on us, saying that erecting an electric fence would deprive him of his livelihood. He no longer could break into Thula Thula so easily. He denied trying to kill anyone, he just wanted to scare the workers off and stop the fence being built. Not surprisingly, that didn’t cut much ice with the authorities.

  I asked to see the shotgun and the cops obliged. It was a battered double-barrel 12-bore, as ancient as its owner. The stock, held together with vinyl electrical tape, was scratched and chipped from thousands of scrapes in the bush. The barrel was rusted and pitted. There was no way this was the person responsible for our major poaching problem.

&
nbsp; So who was?

  With that disruption behind us the construction continued from dawn to dusk, seven days a week. It was back-breaking work, sweaty and dirty with temperatures soaring to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. But mile by torturous mile, the electric fence started to take shape, inching northwards, then cutting east and gathering momentum as the workers’ competency levels increased.

  Building a boma was equally gruelling, albeit on a far smaller scale. We measured out 110 square yards of virgin bush and cemented 9-foot-tall, heavy-duty eucalyptus poles into concrete foundations every 12 yards. Then coils of tempered mesh and a trio of cables as thick as a man’s thumb were strung onto the poles, tensioned by the simple expedient of attaching the ends to the Land Rover bumper and ‘revving’ it taut.

  But no matter how thick the cables, no bush fence will hold a determined elephant. So the trump card is the ‘hot wires’. The electrification process is deceptively simple. All it consists of is four live wires bracketed onto the poles so they run inside the structure, while two energizers that run off car batteries generate the ‘juice’.

  Simple or not, the energizers pack an 8,000-volt punch. This may sound massive, which it is, but the shock is not fatal as the amperage is extremely low. But believe me, it is excruciating, even to an elephant with an inch-thick hide. I can vouch first-hand, having accidentally touched the wires several times during repairs, or while carelessly waving arms in animated conversation, much to the mirth of my rangers. It’s most unpleasant as the electricity seizes and surprises you. Your body shudders and unless you let go quickly you sit down involuntarily as your legs collapse. The only good thing is that you recover quickly to laugh about it.

  Once the fence was up, the final task was to chop down any trees that could be shoved onto it, as this is an elephant’s favourite way of snapping the current.

  The deadline passed in an eye-blink and of course we were nowhere near finished, even though I had employed more men and at the boma we slaved virtually around the clock, even working by car lights at night.